Are these checkpoints springing up everywhere? How is this legal again?
Don't know. If there's a hook hanging from your car's door handle, then you'll know they had a good reason.
Because if you don't give them the requested papers they can tase you and the 9th court of appeals says that's just dandy.
Basically it is legal because the courts have ruled that driving is a privilege not a right. By driving you are pretty much agreeing to the right of the authorities to check that you are licensed to do so. The authorities often use this as an excuse to check other things.
Because if you don't give them the requested papers they can tase you
I also originally read this as taste you which was funnier if a little odd.
I've never run into one in the US. I suspect that as the Joe Arpaios gain power they will become more common, especially in border states.
The big question is whether these searches are unreasonable. With the current Supreme Court, I suspect they are not. In a not-crazy world they are, IMO.
There needs to be a third category between rights and privilidges which contains things that are functionally necessary to be a citizen, but which can be taken away if you violate the responsibility associated it.
Having affordable, available daycare is another item that springs to mind for this category, along with driving.
The big question is whether these searches are unreasonable.
I'm sure you're right about the Supreme Court, but on the face of this, this is self-evidently unreasonable. There is no reason for any one car, if you're stopping every car.
Checkpoints aren't terribly common, but I go through them every now and again and we're a long way from the Mexican border. Or South of the Border, for that matter. I was under the impression that they're generally set up to catch drunk drivers or during Amber alerts.
7: Being in the state next door to you, and never in my life having encountered one, that strikes me as odd. I'd have figured it was an immigration thing, too, as NC has one of the fastest growing Latino populations (or did as of recently whenever I saw those numbers).
With the current Supreme Court, I suspect they are not. In a not-crazy world they are, IMO.
The SC has okayed sobriety checkpoints, immigration checkpoints, and roadblocks to investigate a specific crime, but has rejected "general crime control" checkpoints (in the case it decided, a roadblock to drug-sniff every car). That last case was with O'Connor in a 5-4 majority, I think, so the current court might very well be worse.
3 doesn't sound right to me, at least not as a rule of law. Exercising the privilege of driving does not constitute a waiver of 4th Amendment rights, and (outside of certain contexts like sobriety checkpoints) you still need "reasonable suspicion" to stop a driver. Granted, that's only as good as the scrutiny applied, so in practice it may not amount to much.
I figured they were aimed at drunk driving, since nearly all the ones I've hit have been midnightish on weekend nights. But I haven't seen one in at least six or seven years.
They're set up to catch escaped POWs. Good job you remembered not to reply "Oh, thanks very much!" in English when the police said "Sank you very much, und good luck".
There was a checkpoint set up on my street in Chicago once. In order to pull onto my block and park in front of my building I had to answer questions and show ID. It was pretty certainly done in order to mess with the brisk trade in drugs done by the GDs in that neighborhood. In any event, I was annoyed and 24 and answered like an annoyed 24yo and the teeny, young autocratic cop (he was about 5'2" and had grown an enormous mustache) sent me to a parking lot for a second level of interrogation. (Also I was white and driving a Volvo wagon, so no matter what my license said I think he thought I was a customer.) The grizzled veteran in the parking lot was like, You live here. Go home.
I ran into one in SC a year or two ago, at night. I figured it was to catch drunks. I was lucky, though, as in the back seat I had a block of ice, and an abalone.
In norther NY the Border Patrol frequently sets up checkpoints on major highways quite far from the border. These are often mountainous places where people are driving very fast and no one is expecting a full stop check point. This has been the cause of numerous accidents. I don't recall if any have been fatal.
I was lucky, though, as in the back seat I had a block of ice, and an abalone.
With this kind of luck, who needs canned tuna?
3 doesn't sound right to me, at least not as a rule of law. Exercising the privilege of driving does not constitute a waiver of 4th Amendment rights
It is an oversimplification to be sure. I don't think they can stop people and search their car for no reason, but the overlap of stopping for things like sobriety checkpoints and reasonable suspicion searches pretty much seems like the same thing in practice.
but the overlap of stopping for things like sobriety checkpoints and reasonable suspicion searches pretty much seems like the same thing in practice.
And it doesn't seem like either applied this morning.
And it doesn't seem like either applied this morning.
I don't believe license and registration actually counts as a search legally. IANAL and most of my understanding of this is from high level reading so there may be a bit of nuance that I am missing. As long as the police can come up with an excuse for the checkpoint, which I don't think would be that hard, I am not sure the 4th amendment even applies for your case.
Wow. I truly did not know this.
Does it have anything to do--literally or politically--with this law?
Interesting. I feel like the immigration situation is getting more and more polarized--here in Minnesota, we had a lot of support for a law allowing undocumented immigrants to get drivers' licenses and there is some hope that the bill will pass next year. But also here in Minnesota the white supremacist right, whether actual neo-nazis or just their friends, has been mobilizing a lot more after a decade of relative quiet.
Jesus god. What the hell good do people think fucking checkpoints are going to do anyway? Force undocumented people into a miserable twilight world where they can't use any basic services, where they have to walk or bike everywhere, where maybe they go off to work one morning and get deported while their kids are still waiting to get picked up from school, I suppose.
Sometimes I miss the Cold War; at least we could point to the USSR as a bad place where people always had to present their papers, unlike the good old USA. Even if I were against immigration, it would be a cold day in hell before I'd want to go through a police checkpoint so that a tiny number of undocumented workers could be deported.
It's part of a larger phenomenon. I may have linked this investigation before:
Sobriety checkpoints in California are increasingly turning into profitable operations for local police departments that are far more likely to seize cars from unlicensed motorists than catch drunken drivers.
An investigation by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley with California Watch has found that impounds at checkpoints in 2009 generated an estimated $40 million in towing fees and police fines - revenue that cities divide with towing firms.
[...]
In dozens of interviews over the past three months, law enforcement officials and tow truck operators say that vehicles are predominantly taken from minority motorists - often illegal immigrants.
17: I've always thought of Texas as a state where you might have several drinks with breakfast.
Jammies says that two guys broke out of a San Antonio prison yesterday, so the barricade could have been related to that.
21: That's immensely interesting. I'm preparing a links list on immigration (as I do every few months) for our local Indymedia and I will include this.
Very much in the spirit of police/military checkpoints worldwide, I see.
I've always thought of Texas as a state where you might have several drinks with breakfast.
I don't think this is a stereotype. There are still dry counties, etc.
25: I've always thought of dry counties (and other harsh drinking restrictions) as being related to inappropriately timed drinking binges. If it is illegal to drink at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, why not start at 7:00 a.m. on a Wednesday?
There needs to be a third category between rights and privilidges which contains things that are functionally necessary to be a citizen, but which can be taken away if you violate the responsibility associated it... Having affordable, available daycare is another item that springs to mind for this category
I'm not sure I understand how this particular example fits your framework. So your access to affordable, available daycare can be taken away if, what, you try to take your kid to daycare when she's sick? You repeatedly fail to pick your kid up on time?
I don't think that is the case. I mean, there are certainly alcoholics, and a normal amount of social drinkers, but I don't think I've ever heard that particular attitude expressed.
27: I was thinking if you failed to pay or something, and financially you could easily afford it.
21: ...seize cars from unlicensed motorists...
I'm having a hard time seeing what's bad about this. I don't want unlicensed motorists on the road, and I don't particularly care about their skin color, national origin, or immigration status.
26: Dry counties are related to Bible-thumping assholes who believe they get to dictate right and wrong to everybody else.
21: That it's being abused as a pretext for making life miserable for undocumented workers or anyone resembling anyone from Mexico. They're not out to catch 16 year olds joy-riding.
31: Yes. But Bible-thumpers who don't like drinking tend to be from certain types of Protestant backgrounds that are, from what I've seen, associated with lower SES and higher rates of drinking in a bad way.
28: Interesting. I have the same vague general impression as Moby Hick about Texas and drinking. Probably from my Chicago uncle's anecdote about how it's great because there are tubs of iced-down Budweiser ("it's da' king of da' beers! says so right on the label!"), like, everywhere you go.
I'm totally willing to believe that this impression is off-base, though.
The Border Patrol's authority technically extends 100 miles from the border AND in a 100 mile radius around any international point of entry, i.e. most airports. So the BP could set up a checkpoint in Taylor's Falls, Wisconsin, or Littleton, Colorado or what have you. So they can use their devious powers practically anywhere there are people.
When I think of heavy drinking, I think of locations that don't get much sunlight in the winter. I am completely prepared to believe that, say, Alaskans are hard drinkers.
I'm totally willing to believe that this impression is off-base, though.
Yes, I could be off-base. I have not been to Texas in many years.
30: This is a weird thing about immigration. Our immigration laws are horrible, Kafkaesque, and unjust, which means that immigrants end up in violation of not only the immigration laws, but all sorts of other laws (like, if you can't get a drivers license without having your immigration status in order, undocumented immigrants are also going to be unlicensed drivers) and so enforcing all sorts of laws has differentially punitive effects on undocumented immigrants, and people who want undocumented immigrants treated decently tend, reasonably, to favor lax enforcement of laws that will cause difficulty for undocumented immigrants.
But I want the DMV-related laws enforced, generally. I really want to get to an equilibrium where there's no significant population of people in the US illegally, so that we're not faced with this kind of problem. I don't know how to do that other than opening the borders -- work-visas for the asking, barring something individually awful about you (and I wouldn't really care about that, but I could see wanting to bar people with, say, an extensive criminal history back in the country they were coming from), and say a five-year proof of residence if you want to be a citizen.
A long time ago, I watched a Trading Spaces episode set in Key West. Both couples brought their blenders with them when they moved to each other's house, and never got any work done because they were busy having margaritas. Neither of them had cars--no point in driving when you can stumble down to the beach. I have no idea if this program was an accurate depiction of life in South Florida, or if the Florida retirement communities bought this show for advertising space, but... well, it sort of looked like a great life for an old person. I keep trying to talk my parents into retiring down there.
I don't think this is a stereotype. There are still dry counties, etc.
I'll echo others in the thread and say it's definitely a stereotype. It might not have any grounding in reality, granted.
Jammies says that two guys broke out of a San Antonio prison yesterday, so the barricade could have been related to that.
Ha! I was almost right!
My parent's have retired to Florida. They have always been super social, but Florida has pushed things to a new level.
My guess: nearly every place thinks of itself as being hard-drinking, unless they pride themselves on deprivation.
Since Texans loudly promote themselves more obnoxiously than other places, the message has more volume, and is more likely to stick.
But:
1) I definitely don't think it's true
2) I don't think Texans believe it any more passionately than, say, Michiganders believe that Michiganders are hard drinkers.
I think in my case the stereotype stems from the knowledge that it was not illegal to actually drink while driving in Texas, as long as you weren't at a DUI level of intoxication. According to Google, this was finally prohibited in 2001, because it threatened the state's access to federal highway funds.
46: Oh yeah, true. Technically it was legal to have an open container, but it ostensibly was supposed to belong to someone other than the driver.
47: That beer is for Pinkie, my elephant friend.
I really don't see anything extra in the way of alcohol boasting, when I stop and think about it, from people who pride themselves on being Texan. Whereas I do see pick up truck and gun boasting, though.
I'm curious if the other Texan commenters have the same experience. Or if they're drunk already.
I don't think of the pacific Northwest as especially hard drinking. Or the corn belt. Or the Rockies.
but it ostensibly was supposed to belong to someone other than the driver
When I moved to Texas (in 1991) I remember being told that they had only recently made it so that it had to be someone other than the driver, but I have no idea if this was true.
I didn't feel like Texas was harder drinking than any other places I've lived, but I did feel like beer was more omnipresent and central to daily life. But of course it was really fucking hot all the time, so.
I don't think Texans believe it any more passionately than, say, Michiganders believe that Michiganders are hard drinkers.
The point of 50 was: this seems like deliberate cherry-picking. People in Michigan have to drink heavily, or they'd freeze to death in the winters. But that doesn't mean that Texas isn't a relatively heavy-drinking state (or perceived to be, at least).
Whereas I do see pick up truck and gun boasting, though.
When I think of a typical Texan, I see a guy in a cowboy hat riding in a pick-up with a shotgun in the back window and a Shiner Bock in his hand. This may not be accurate, but it is an improvement over what I picture when I think of most other states in which I've never lived.
And I've never been able to form a mental picture of Delaware despite having driven through it at some point.
Huh. People always told me that there was no open container law in Montana, but this seems to contradict that.
I think there is no statewide open container law that doesn't apply to federal roads. or something. So you can have an open beer while you're driving as long as you stay on state roads. Maybe.
Except in Butte, obviously. Everything's better in Butte.
http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/Resources/GraphicsGallery/consfigs4text.htm
Texas, at between 2 and 2.24 US Gallons of pure ethanol per person per year isn't very high by US standards, and very low indeed compared to most European countries.
55 s/b doesn't apply only to federal roads.
This graphic only covers beer, but it does seem to indicate that, while Texas is a bit on the lush side, it has nothing on North Dakota.
http://www.sloshspot.com/photos/blog/full/photo_1246056700.png
Sure, use data to support your arguments.
40:he rest of Florida is not like Key West.
Texas is a bit on the lush side, it has nothing on North Dakota.
We do like to drink. Now we just need to beat Montana. I blame our distinct lack of regional breweries.
I associate North Dakota with drinking beer. We used to play "Fargo Quarters" where you used a coffee mug and had to road trip to Fargo if the quarter went through the handle of the mug.
62: or we could team up, share breweries, combine militias, secede from the union, and start our own armed beer-delivery service. I'll make us some t-shirts. We'll make a fortune.
From the link in 56, the lowest consuming states:
1.99 or below:
Alabama
Arkansas
Kansas
Kentucky
New York
North Carolina
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Utah
West Virginia
One of these things is not like the other ones.
The contrast between 56 and 58 is interesting. So Connecticut and New Jersey drink an abnormally low amount of beer, but not a low amount of alcohol overall. More wine drinking? New York is on the low end in both beer and total alcohol, which surprises me. And people in Arkansas and Oklahoma just don't drink much? What else is there to do in Arkansas and Oklahoma?
I really want to get to an equilibrium where there's no significant population of people in the US illegally, so that we're not faced with this kind of problem. I don't know how to do that other than opening the borders
Legalization of existing residents, the creation of a large scale legal immigration program w/o the standard skills and education criteria and with waiting lists, major fines for those who employ illegals.
What else is there to do in Arkansas and Oklahoma?
Methamphetamines.
65: There are a number of moon-shining states in that list. I'm wondering if that gets counted by the survey.
or we could team up, share breweries, combine militias, secede from the union, and start our own armed beer-delivery service. I'll make us some t-shirts. We'll make a fortune
I really don't see Montana getting much out of this arrangement unless we can get our hands on ND's nuclear arsenal. You guys have all the breweries and the militia.
That map sure has a lot of missing data. In North Carolina, only two counties (of 100) are still dry.
The map in 71 obscures a lot of nuance in state regulations. And per 72 it may not be up-to-date, the English Wiki article no longer links to it.
70- but the market in Montana is saturated. We need to get the beer to the brewery-poor people of ND to make any kind of profit.
72: Yeah, it's also showing Greene County, VA, as dry which it's not.
45
My guess: nearly every place thinks of itself as being hard-drinking, unless they pride themselves on deprivation.
I don't know about that. I can't think of anyplace I've lived (Vermont, upstate New York, western France and Arlington, VA) that prides itself on being hard-drinking, and only the first of those prides itself on deprivation. (France prides itself on drinking well, of course, but that's not the same thing as drinking hard.)
Twentysomethings and men often pride themselves on being hard-drinking when there's no religious interdiction on it, but that's not a regional thing.
My experience of living in Texas (25-30 years ago) was that it was an interesting mix. Big dry areas plus a lot of fundie teetotalers offset by a boisterously-promoted drinking (especially beer) culture. The open container laws at the time reinforced the reputation. Created interesting situations like at Texas A&M where there were very strict anti-alcohol rules on campus--but you could drink in cars. Good plan.
http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2005/BillPdf/SB0080.pdf
Montana passed an open container law in the 2005 leg. Note the passenger provision!
Certainly the Texas male stereotype promoted in King of the Hill is one of never being without a beer. Not "haha they're always shitfaced," just "regular dudes, drinking some beers."
79 -- You have to pay the driver. Also, I like that it doesn't go on your record, and insurance companies can't jack rates based on an OC violation.
80: Oh sure. But I think of that as being a blue collar stereotype over a Texas stereotype.
I don't think of the pacific Northwest as especially hard drinking.
We'd probably drink more if all those craft brews and wines and boutique spirits weren't so damned expensive. Alaska is an outlier, certainly; by all accounts, winter drinking up there is legendary.
NH really stands out in the map in 58, I suppose because when you're angry about taxes 24/7, you really need beer to take the edge off. Live drunk or die!
A lot of people vacation in NH and consume large amounts of alcohol while on vacation. Certainly that's what I do with my summers.
A lot of people also drive into NH to shop for alcohol and then drink it in their home states, because, hey, no taxes on liquor or beer!
80
Certainly the Texas male stereotype promoted in King of the Hill is one of never being without a beer.
Drew Carey was an amateur brewer and being an Ohioan was a big part of his identity. (Not sure about that, I rarely watching the show, but it was in the theme song, right?) Homer Simpson is from every state and has Duff beer, of course. Cheers was set in Boston. There was a lot of drinking in Office Space.
Never being without a beer isn't a Texas thing, it's a blue-collar or white-collar-but-needs-to-unwind thing, an everyman thing.
The American blue collar never without a beer thing fits well with American weak American beers, the sort of thing you can drink all afternoon without getting too drunk.
Does working class drinking in Europe actually involve taking a break between beers? Is this part of the general "Europeans are better at having smaller portions" thing?
but the market in Montana is saturated. We need to get the beer to the brewery-poor people of ND to make any kind of profit
True although it looks like those lightweights in MN are where we could really expand. SD and WY aren't quite pulling their weight either.
88: Be careful about giving too much alcohol to people who live in Wyoming. They might shoot you in the face.
85: I've been one of those people when I've been in VT, and I can't see that fully accounting for NH's showing on the beer map. The NH liquor stores are a big draw, but they sell wine and spirits, and there is a beer tax in NH, it's just low (third lowest in the country, I think). You'd have to assume that there are enough people for whom the drive is worth a small savings to make a big dent in the statistics, and given how few people live near the state line above the southern end, I can't see it, but I suppose I could be wrong.
90: Yes, but NH isn't a heavily populated state and it is a vacation draw. If the average New Yorker or Massachusetts-ian (Massachusetts-ite?) who visits takes home even a fifth, it could really bump-up the stats.
The NH thing is probably something as simple as people waking up, realizing Judd Gregg is still one of their senators, and reaching for a couple of cold ones out of utter despair.
In North Carolina, the constitutionality of a checkpoint is based on a two-pronged test: first, the checkpoint must have a permissible purpose (as in checking drivers' licenses & registrations); and second, the checkpoint must be "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment.
If the primary purpose of the checkpoint is impermissible (general crime control, interdicting legal narcotics), no amount of reasonableness in the administration of the checkpoint will save it constitutionally.
If the primary purpose is permissible (checking licenses, finding intoxicated drivers), that doesn't mean the checkpoint is automatically constitutional. The checkpoint must also be "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment -- that is, the trial court must balance the public's interest in the checkpoint itself against the individual's Fourth Amendment privacy interest. Some of the factors to be weighed in this balancing: the gravity of the public concerns served by the stop, the degree to which the stop advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty. If, on balance, these factors weigh in favor of the public interest, the checkpoint is reasonable and therefore constitutional.
[For the law geeks out there interested in NC's most recent and comprehensive case on this, try State v. Veazey, 191 N.C. App. 181 (2008) (link = PDF)]
The NC General Assembly has added an additional level of statutory requirements on law enforcement officers who seek to establish such checkpoints, including that the pattern for stopping vehicles must be established in advance, that the checkpoint must be operated under written guidelines, that no individual officer may be given discretion as to which vehicle to stop, and that the public must be advised that a checkpoint is being operated. [N.C.G.S. 20-16.3A (2010)]
Interesting side note: I got stuck in one of these license checkpoints on Cameron Ave. in Chapel Hill (link to map) last Tuesday at about 6:45pm. Seemed like an odd place and time, but whatever. I got waved through without having my license checked b/c they were stopping every third car and that wasn't me.
Legalities aside, it's never seemed like a huge annoyance to me the few times I've been caught up in one of these, but I can see how other folks might feel like their privacy's been invaded by the jackbooted thugs of authority. Maybe the legalisms cited above will reassure some of you that, at least in NC, these things aren't nearly as arbitrary as they seem. Of course, that's just IMHO, YMMV, etc.
87
The American blue collar never without a beer thing fits well with American weak American beers, the sort of thing you can drink all afternoon without getting too drunk.
Are we still talking about fiction and stereotypes, or not? I think most people don't really have a beer in hand at all times.
I'd say European drinking culture varies by region more than it does in America (Of course, my actual experience on this is just based on a dozen or so families in or near one city in France, but anyways...), but I'd guess Europeans generally drink more than America in terms of average BAC.
Wow. Even when I'm procrastinating, it still sounds like I'm writing a brief. Sheesh.
91: VT and ME are also vacation draws, and even less heavily populated.
I think most people don't really have a beer in hand at all times.
I'm so lonely.
96: But neither ME nor VT has a huge, low tax liquor store right at the intersection of I-95 and the Massachusetts border.
If the primary purpose is permissible (checking licenses, finding intoxicated drivers), that doesn't mean the checkpoint is automatically constitutional.
I remember one guy I knew (not well) who got his DUI arrest tossed-out because his lawyer established that the checkpoint was targeted specifically at him. Given the time and place of the checkpoint (just after bars closed, on the road that went to his house and almost nowhere else), it didn't matter than the check point was published in advance and otherwise qualified.
The DUI-guy was right that the police were unconstitutionally targeting him but the police were right in assuming that he got drunk and drove home from the bar every night. The tossed arrest gave him one more chance to keep his license (this was not his first DUI arrest) and thus keep his job. I don't recall whether he was deterred from DUIing or not.
98: But the map is about beer.
100: Good point. In that case, I attribute it to the deliciousness of Smuttynose IPA, brewed in Portsmouth.
99: Yeah, that checkpoint sounds completely unconstitutional. Sounds like the cops got tired of following the guy home every night & waiting for him to cross the center line. Shoulda been more patient.
102: I'm always amazed by people willing to do all sorts of bad things but not lie.
101: Delicious comity! Incidentally, anybody traveling through VT this summer is urged to visit the Three Penny Taproom in Montpelier. The tap list on their site suggests that the place is as great as I've been told.
103: Of course, the police didn't see setting-up the check point as a bad thing. The guy was a danger to others on the road.
I don't know if it was a new law or just one that hadn't been used locally, but I hadn't heard of a DUI check point before that. I think the cops just didn't know the limits of the law.
I'm always amazed by people willing to do all sorts of bad things but not lie.
Tom Lehrer has a song for you.
Does working class drinking in Europe actually involve taking a break between beers? Is this part of the general "Europeans are better at having smaller portions" thing?
Total alcohol consumption in much of Europe is really quite high, but the stereotype is that the UK and the Scandinavian countries go in more for heavy boozing at weekends, and the Spanish, French and Italians spread it out more through the week and through the day. So, at least by reputation, the Brits might drink more in a single drinking session, but less when taken over a whole 7 day period.
There are obviously lots of Texan stereotypes, but I definitely think one of them is a visible subculture of hard-drinking good old boys (likely to be played by Woody Harrelson or Matthew McConaughey at a theater near you).
And, for anecdata, I definitely have noticed more obviously-drunk-during-the-work-day superintendents in Texas than I have in my previous abodes.
In North Carolina back in 94 or 95, the police set up a checkpoint on one of the main highways headed to a venue at which one of those druggie bands was playing, the Grateful Dead or Pink Floyd, can't remember which. Or at least, they put up signs saying there was a checkpoint ahead; in actuality, they were on the next exits, so as to catch everyone trying to dodge them. At least two of my friends got busted.
The legality of such a checkpoint always bothered me, but I do have to give 'em credit for cleverness.
Driving north of Brawley, CA (23 miles north of Mexican border), you can get stopped going north on Highway 78. My wife and I (one white, one non-white) were waved through while others were pulled aside. The cops were either Border Patrol or CHP or sheriffs.
Driving east on I-8 out of San Diego in the mountains/desert, there are two checkpoints in the middle of the freeway where BP will stop cars and ask "Where are you out of? Are you a US citizen?" and then wave you through (or not.)
Where are you out of?
And not "Of where are you out?" Tsk.
Oh, heebie, you should leave these things to the expertly pedantic. It's "Out of where are you?"
Alternatively, "Of where are you out, asshole?"
Where are you out of?
Where people don't end sentences in prepositions and have more civil liberties.
112: Say, Texan, scan the thread upthread and see if you've heard the Texas stereotype outlined of out.
That may be a paraphrase -- maybe it was "Where are you coming from?" I don't wish my poor grammar to be ascribed to the Border Patrol officer.
That experience was quite pleasant, compared to the raft of shit I got from Border Patrol a few days before for taking a picture of the processing facility when I was waiting in line going north from Tijuana.
107: Here, when you go out for lunch they bring a bottle of wine to the table & leave it with you, even if you eat alone. At the cheaper places it's watered down.
On Sunday mornings you have your first glass of beer by 11 am.
But the stereotype is that we don't drink as hard as in the UK, it's true. I read somewhere that appearing visibly drunk in public is supposed to be frowned upon in Spain, but I don't know if that's bullshit or not.
Just say "Blue banana". Immigrants from there are almost always welcomed.
There is a 100 miles zone around the border (and border includes oceans) in which Homeland Security can stop and search any car with no justification, just set up a checkpoint and pull everyone over.
A friend of mine got their car searched at such a zone, and was arrested for reasons that had nothing to do with the ostensible reason behind the checkpoint.
See this ACLU page, "Are you living in a constitution free zone?" Two thirds of the U.S. population lives within 100 miles of the border.
Today in European working-class daytime beer-drinking news.
Presumably coincidental, given how far apart heebers and I live, but I've just heard from a (very conservative) cow-orker that local police have been setting up roadblocks all week, ostensibly to check the expiration date of one's license to drive. He's been stopped twice this week. Double-you-Tee-Eff, bored local cops?
